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Death live-
It will remain, untouched by human hands, by the elements, by blood, sweat and tears- a solemn reminder, forever, of what has transpired. From the 26th January 2004, the number 29 will never be worn on the back of a benfica player again. Words were meant to mark this passing- fond words from colleagues, the ones closest and most respected, the ones who alongside fought those battles, yet in the end hollow speech gave way to the crushing emotionality of the occasion; even team captain Helder was distraught beyond consoling, beyond tribute with mere spoken word.
The Portuguese soccer federation declared a day of mourning on the 27th of January 2004 in memory of Miklos Feher, who collapsed and died while playing for benfica on the night of the 25th. It was a league game against lowly Vitoria SC Guimaraes, a scrappy away match played on a trench of a pitch 300 kilometers to the north of Benfica's home of Lisbon. Entering the final minutes of the game, benfica had just clawed the one goal advantage in the adverse conditions which would keep them in the running at the top of the Portuguese Superliga.
Feher, who had only been on the pitch for 25 or so minutes when he helped create the winning goal, celebrated with his teammates as the second ticked towards the end of the match. Perhaps considering the time left, these celebrations were somewhat overdone, and making their way to the centre circle, the referee singled out feher to sanction for timewasting. Olegario Benquerenco drew the yellow card from his pocket, and, in an incident which will surely haunt him for the rest of his days, Feher smiled in mild and light-hearted disbelief at him.
Feher shook his head and smiled again, and as the referee moved out of shot, he turned his back to the camera, hands on his hips and attention redirected to the restarting match. No slow motion playback can make the events that passed next move any more surreally than they did in real time. As he stood there, the central figure in the television screen, a solitary cough that first tilted his head, then shook his shoulders, and finally wracked his chest forced his hands from his hips and onto his upper thighs. He leaned forward as the cough reached his apex, and then suddenly his centre of gravity seemed to change as an unseen force impacted into his torso and he lurched backwards. It was as if the puppeteers string's to his doll had been instantly cut and, with nothing left to guard and support his creation, envious gravity seized its opportunity to redress the years in which it had impotently tugged on his sleeves, and flung him to earth with great venom.
There was no effort made to guard himself against the impact, no instinctive reaction whatsoever, which seemed to make it more shocking than can be conceived through written word- in even the fall of a felled boxer, there is some element of nature kicking in to protect, of the core energy of life reacting. This was the fall of a dead man.
He impacted into the muddy turf with no reaction, like a cloth bag of ash, his shoulders taking the form of the ground beneath them. His chest could be seen to rise unnaturally high with one gasp, two gasps, then no more as startled teams mates and opponents surrounded him.
Team doctors soon joined them as players screamed to the touchline for assistance, kneeled by his side and cradled his head, and CPR was administered as soon as it was determined that the case serious. The time was 21:30 GMT.
"i immeadiately knew something was very wrong when he fell on the pitch and all i could do was call the medical crews of both teams" said Benfica's Fernando Aguiar, who scored the only goal of the game one minute before Feher's collapse.
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25 minutes later, Feher lay in Hospital da Senhora da Oliveira with medical staff desperately fighting to resuscitate him and save his life. He lost this fight at 23:10, Greenwich Mean Time, after one hour and forty minutes of revival efforts. He was 24 years old.
"We did everything we could", said Fausto Fernandes, director of the hospital.
While this was happening, feher's teammates and coach Jose Antonio Camacho, who had rushed to his aid and had wept and prayed by his side in the driving rain, were forced to wait out the remaining moments of the match as both captains and referee decided to end it before rushing to the hospital along with the club president, Luis Filipe Viera.
Death live, read the front-page headline in the following day's edition of the Diario de Noticias newspaper, while another, the Publico newspaper, exclaimed " Death in Guimaraes".
Miklos Feher was born in Tatabanya, 60 km west of Budapest. He began his promising career with his hometown team, and progressed through the Hungarian league with Györi ETO FC before being signed as a 19 year old by Portuguese side FC Porto in 1998 after three seasons in which he had scored 23 goals for Gyor. Porto claimed the premier league title that season.
Feher found difficulty in maintaining a place in the Porto first team, which at the time contained Mario Jardel in his prime. During the 99/00 season, he made a loan move to premier league strugglers Salguieros, where he scored 5 goals in 14 matches, contributing significantly to them retaining their premier status.
A loan move also beckoned in the following season, this time for Sporting Braga, where he scored 14 goals in 26 matches and was voted the team's most valuable player. I want to concentrate on scoring goals to help keep Sporting high in the table. I couldn't be happier right now. " Feher said at the time.
Despite impressing on loan, Porto still considered him as a prospect for the future, and feher, dissatisfied at the lack of first team opportunities, asked to be transfer listed. This request was denied, and he spent the entirety of that season in the b-team while his contract expired.
He signed for Benfica in 2002, scoring 4 goals in 17 matches. However, he had been struggling this season, with a handful of starts from the bench to his name and three goals despite this.
He was also an Hungarian international, having played 25 times for his country and scoring seven goals since his debut against Azerbaijan in his first season with Porto.
This type of incident is not unprecedented in the sport, with Marc-Vivien Foe of Manchester City dying similarly tragic circumstances at the age of 28 while playing for Cameroon during last season's confederation's cup semi-final against Colombia in France. The indelible mark this has left on those involved is clear to see in the words of Cameroon coach Winifred Schafer, who revealed his own inconsolable heartache in that he had tried to take the visibly-tiring player off in the 72nd minute, shortly before he died- foe refused because he wanted to ensure they would reach the final. As in the Marc-Vivien foe case, though cardiac arrest was the supposed cause of death, Fehers four and a half hour autopsy proved inconclusive beyond cardio-respiratory arrest, and could not provide a reason for his sudden death.
This is not even the first time that Portuguese football has suffered such a tragedy- Porto's Fernando Pascoal collapsed and died in the 13th minute of the 13th game of the season in a league match in 1973. On nearly the same day as Feher's death, it was also reported that a non-league player in Sweden had dropped dead during a training session. We here in Galway also remember when such a tragedy struck closer to home in April 1996. Don Geering (28), a visiting player with Northwich RFC, collapsed and died in during a challenge match against Our Ladys Boys Club in the Sportsground after scoring a try. In that case, a mix of amphetamines and alcohol in combination with physical exertion were determined to be the cause of a fatal heart attack.
After the autopsy had been completed, Fehers remains were transported back to the stadium of light in Lisbon, which is scheduled to hold the final of the European football championships on July 4th of this year. Here, his Benfica teammates carried his coffin to a place of honour before a huge statue of this once all-conquering club's symbol, the eagle. Tears flowed in disbelief and inconsolable grief as they prayed for him. Outside the stadium, fans of Portugals biggest club and other clubs, even of their bitter rivals sporting Lisbon, left flowers, candles, scarves, written tributes and condolences and entered the stadium to pay their respects before feher was brought back to Hungary to be for a state funeral- a queue of people lining some 1000 ft. at times waited to do so. Prime Minister Jose Manuel Durao Barroso and President Jorge Sampaio also sent letters of condolence to Benfica and to Fehers family.
"This is a monstrosity" commented 68-yr old fan Carlos Costa before breaking into tears as he recalled Portuguese football's previous tragedy." it is much worse that when Pacoal das Neves died because everyone saw it on TV this time"
Dr Gilberto Madaíl, the President of the Portuguese Football Federation, commented: "On behalf of the Portuguese Federation I would like to express my deep regret at this situation. Life has unfair situations and all we can say is that our thoughts are with the family and friends of the player. Last night was truly a black night"
"It was a very great tragedy, a bad day for football, Portuguese football and for Benfica supporters," said Carlos Queiroz, the Portuguese manager of Real Madrid.
"The last thing you expect when you're enjoying a football match is to see a death during it.
Dezso Lejko, the Hungary team doctor, said he had never found anything unusual in Fehers health.
I knew him for four years, since he arrived in the Under-21 team, he told the local radio. I never found anything wrong with his physical state, he had no heart problems at all.
The last tribute is left to Imre Gellei, the former Hungary coach, who realized more than most Fehér's potential, and commented on the significance of such tragic events. "If someone dies on the field it means he has become a martyr of sport." it is a truly sad day indeed when a game claims a life to its cause.
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